It's Grilling Time! The Official Stangnet Grill/Smoke Thread

Wood chips definitely help to add flavor. I like to put my wood chips in a bowl of water and zap it in the microwave for about 5 minutes. This seems to help the wood soak up the water without having to soak them over night. The wet wood will smoke a little longer wet.
 
@Davedacarpainter how did those sausage burgers turn out?
They where underwhelming to me.

I mixed two parts beef to one part sausage.

The sausage made the whole patty tougher like a sausage patty.

I like sausage and I like hamburgers, just not mixed I guess.

I’m thinking of going on a buffalo wing quest now too. I may do that on Saturday.

Sunday is butcher ribeye to butcher ribeye, I can’t lose on this one I think.
 
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That's disappointing about the sausage burgers. I was hoping it would give the burgers a little extra flavor, but wasn't counting on it making the patties tough. But I cant agree with you more on the butcher rib-eye shootout.

My dad has been experimenting with cooking burgers on a griddle using a metal ring that he puts the burgers in. What he says he is doing is putting the ring down and putting a little butter on the griddle. Let the butter melt then put your seasoned hamburger in the butter. He is leaving the meat in a ball so it's just sitting there cooking in one spot for a minute as a ball. Then he is using a large spatula to push the meat down into the ring. He says he uses enough meat that when pushed down it fills the metal ring. He then lets it cook a bit then uses the spatula to flip the whole thing over and cook on the other side.

He owns a tool and die shop so he is cooking on a slab of D2 tool steel using a metal ring he whipped up in the shop! Says hes going to buy himself a proper griddle for Christmas.

He claims they are coming out great. Says the ring helps hold the juices in.

Next time I get up there he is going to cook his burgers and I'm going to cook butter burgers.
 
The results are in! In my tummy, that is......

First off i decided for steaks this good they needed some good charcoal. "Cowboy Charcoal", sounds silly, it's just real charcoal and not briquettes. What's the main difference? The real charcoal has a much higher temperature when fully heated.
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The benefit is the searing of the steaks took just right at 60 seconds per side, then three minutes each side off to the side of the coals. This made a reallly nice medium rare steak for the thickness of the steaks.

This picture is of a Siegi's steak on the left and the Perry's steak on the right.
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The Siegi's was 21.99 per pound, the Perry's was 13.99 per pound. The Siegi's is claimed to be prime (and fully looks like it too), the Perry's claims a choice cut.

The results? Too close to make any claim of superiority. maybe the Siegi's steak was better.......maybe not.

But at $8 per pound cheaper, Perry's Meat Market gets my business from now on.

Mind you, Siegi's will be my go to for brats.

Next weekend begins the buffalo wing challenge! I'm going to enjoy that one!

I got to tell y'all though, go to a butcher for your cook outs. It was a happy, happy day for my taste buds
 
All looks yummy! This is my experience grew up with grilling on propane. On another forum someone mentioned a grill you start on propane to light the coals and then cook on charcoal. This was the Weber Performer Deluxe. The little extra time it takes to me is well worth the flavor. I do recommend when cooking a good meat thermometer I was recommended a MK4 Thermapen and can concur it has made me get my meat cooked just right. Here is tonight's dinner! Salmon! And yes grill is staged to have the Stang in the back ground!
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I bought five pounds of chicken wings from the butcher this morning and put them in a half/half marinade of italian dressing and worcestershire sauce. I let them soak for five hours.
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I making a buffalo wing sauce out of butter, Louisiana hot sauce, garlic powder and cayenne powder.

Once the wings are done cooking I will hopefully have some wonderful wings to share with my kids.

I'll give a report when they're done.
 
Next up for me will be to get my smoker fired up.

Maybe next weekend will be some spare ribs and a big fat slab of bologna smoked to hopeful perfection.

Any of y’all like smoking?
 
Ok, theory is tomorrow I will take my little sandblaster out back and clean up around the big rot hole in the firebox of my smoker and weld in a patch.

Then sunday I intend to do a simple smoking of a set of ribs and a healthy chunk of bologna.

I'll post more tomorrow on the smoker repair, then sunday on the test drive.
 
Ok, I’ve been doin’ some cipherin’.

I looked into the possibility of purchasing some Kobe ribeyes.

So, the fact is, there is absolutely no Kobe beef being shipped to the US. The restaurants that claim to have it really don’t. The Japs won’t sell the beef from the Kobe region on the open market.

So whatthehell are those fancy steaks claiming they are Kobe?

First off, Kobe beef refers to beef from a region of Kobe in Japan. The actual beef itself is from a strain of cow called Wagyu. Like a heifer.

The wagyu cattle have far more fat in their muscles by nature. Hence that intense marbling y’all have seen in pictures (or in reality if you’ve been lucky enough).

Well, it turns out there are several herds of Wagyu cattle here in the states! And the owners offer them in bite size portions!

Take a look at the next two pictures real close. The first is the picture of the steaks I got from the local butcher. They were the most excellent I could find locally.
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The second is a Wagyu ribeye.....I may die happily ever after when this steak hits the old gums.
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See the difference? What? Are you blind? Of course you see the difference!

I can get the steaks sent to me in three days tops. The only issue I find is that they cost $79 per pound! I found some “cheap” Wagyu steaks for $61.20 per pound though......................$61 per pound.................cheap..................:rock:HELL YEAH I’m going to do it!

It’ll be a couple hundred for three steaks. Plus I’ll even do a taste comparison with the lovely butcher ribeyes I enjoyed so much.

Give me two weeks, so, not next weekend, but the one after.
 
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I'll see your $61/lb. steak and raise you $120/lb Spanish Iberico ham! :eek:

Oh, and feel free to call me a Neanderthal, but I want to buy STEAK, not FAT. I'd rather have the butcher steaks in your first picture over the "not-Kobe" fat in your second picture.